


here i am leaving you clues

by fellstars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mutual Pining, POV Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Post-Time Skip, but. not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24541408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellstars/pseuds/fellstars
Summary: Sylvain’s fortune was the last to be told, and even the teller grew quiet as they read the lines on his open palms.“So?” Sylvain encouraged with a devilish grin. “What is it? Eternal life? Unparalleled love? A big Crest family?”With the same haunted voice as they adopted with every other fortune, the teller said, clear as a bell, “You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms.”
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83





	here i am leaving you clues

**Author's Note:**

> fe3h fic debut and it's sylvix angst this fandom is gonna hate me
> 
> ALSO THANK U SM TO ATHEN WHO BETA'D THIS I LOVE U!!!
> 
> edit: lol happy birthday sylvain

It’s Ashe’s arrow that finally strikes Hubert down.

Felix sees it leave his bow as he knocks his sword’s hilt against the temple of the Imperial soldier clinging to him with manic desperation. The arrow shoots cleanly through his throat, in one end and lodged as the point comes out the other. Hubert gurgles, the last smidge of dark magic from his palms stopping short before Byleth’s nose tip and then dissolving into the air.

All the Blue Lions watch and stare as he falls to his knees, a wicked smile on his face as blood spills past his lips and stains his skin before dripping down his mage robes. “We must place our faith… in Her Majesty...” he struggles out, spluttering on his own blood. “Her victory is everything…” He slumps entirely as his body begins to grow limp, and there’s red pooling where he lies. No one breathes, they don’t dare - perhaps one wrong move and they’ll see him dance back to life, like a puppet controlled by string.

He doesn’t.

It’s not until Dimitri speaks up, voice strong and clear, when most of them dare look away from Hubert. “It’s over.” Felix laughs dryly, but no one gives him grief for it. Dimitri turns to face the stairs. “The way to the palace is clear. Let’s move.”

Everyone snaps out of it at the mention of the palace, and they disperse to exchange weapons and items for the upcoming battle - the _last_ battle, Felix thinks as he examines his swords, trying to figure out if some are better to switch out from a few dead soldiers - speaking in low tones. They don’t have to say it out loud, but by the day’s end, they could all be dead. He scoffs as he rolls a body to its back, grabbing the bloodied blade from it and wiping it against his pants. _As if._

By the time they're gathered back around Dimitri again, Felix hears him instruct a Kingdom soldier to send platoons to capture Enbarr, with strict orders to ensure there will be no unnecessary killings. It can be agreed that enough blood has been spilt, and yet there’s still more to come. The smell of it is thick in the air. There will be a lot of cleaning needed to be done to rid the streets of it.

“Edelgard awaits us.” Dimitri stands before them. “We will advance the main forces straight to the palace.”

Byleth nods solemnly. “We’ve finally made it here.”

Dimitri sighs and watches as the Imperial flags sway gently in the light breeze. “Yes, it has truly been a long war…” Five years, nearly six. Felix finds himself silently agreeing when Dimitri adds that they have only made it so far because of the Professor, as sour as the thought may seem. Blessing of the Goddess indeed. He addresses the group once more. “We will advance our troops and confront her. We must strike her down.”

Dedue, ever the blindly loyal dog, bows. “My life is yours, Your Highness.”

At this point, all of theirs are. Despite that, enthusiasm seems to creep in as they all follow and express their intent for only their best efforts, keen to make it home. No one can come this far and not feel premature relief. Not even Felix.

“Is this what a do-or-die situation looks like?” Sylvain laughs and Felix elbows him hard, earning him an over-exaggerated groan in response along with a wink.

He stares at Dimitri, determined. “You better win,” he tells him. “Be the boar that you are, and don’t dare look back.” He actually grins as he says it. Maybe the enthusiasm is infectious. Stupid, dumb and useless hope none of them can nor want to fight off.

Byleth’s smile is dangerous. “Let us go!”

“Yes, I will - no. _We_ will win this. Together!” They’re all marvelling at the palace now, the final stronghold for them to breach and claim. “Everyone! Move out!” With Dimitri’s bellows follow the enthralled cheers and cries of the army, and Felix nearly shouts his throat raw.

Once everyone is prepared to venture forth, with Sylvain making a dramatic show of bidding his horse a temporary farewell since it would probably cause more harm than good to mount it inside the palace. Felix shakes his head fondly as the alleged idiot jogs to catch up.

“What’s your deal?” Sylvain goads teasingly.

“We’re off to end a war, and yet you still find some time to perform a dramatic leave of absence to your horse.”

On behalf of said horse, Sylvain huffs. “I’ve known her since our Office Academy days! She’s my sweetheart, and a damn good horse.”

“Of course she is,” Felix sighs, but there’s no bite behind his words.

Silence falls between them as nothing but the sound of armour shifting with movement and footsteps is heard. Sylvain drops his voice lower than before, as if his next words are only intended for them. “We made it this far.”

Felix nods. “We have.” His voice is just as hushed suddenly. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Sylvain says, “ _Pfft!_ I’ve never once done a stupid thing in my life!” He slings an arm over Felix’s shoulder, and for a moment Felix shuts his eyes, relishing in it, this closeness.

He smiles and breathes a small laugh. “Sure.”

“Say,” His lips brush his ear as he leans down a little to whisper. “What if we counted our last ever kills? Highest number gets to choose a reward for himself or a punishment for the loser.”

Felix’s smile only grows. “Only because I’m feeling optimistic.”

“Ohohoho!” Sylvain nudges him. “Don’t get so cocky! We both know I’ll win.”

There’s no chance to reply, because the doors are before them now, and behind them, their fates. Felix nearly scorns at it when he sees it. Poetic bullshit, the whole thing. A life unknown hidden behind golden doors, decorated with selfish wealth, and an army of friends readying to brace it together, for the better or for the worse of the world. Sylvain taps his armour lightly to pull his attention back to the boar.

“I imagine,” he muses with a grimace, “she intends to keep fighting until the bitter end… If this is the end she has chosen, it is my responsibility to see it through with her. Isn’t that so, Emperor of Adrestia?” He tips his head back as he says it, and with his words, Felix sobers a little. Dimitri is firm when he carries on, but there’s some weight of regret to it. “We have no choice but to destroy each other. Such is the destiny we were born to. That is why I will now rise up to answer her iron will with the bite of my lance.”

“I will protect you at all costs.” Dedue speaks clearly and with intention. Dimitri watches him. “We will both live to see tomorrow… Your Majesty.”

 _Your Majesty…_ The words seem to hit them all - even Dimitri, who is still unused to the title.

Felix makes a noise at the back of his throat as it sinks in. “If the King falls here, that would mean my father’s and brother’s deaths were in vain.” The words taste bitter on his tongue, as truth often does. Sylvain nods carefully.

“Well, if I were to die now, I’d have a lot to explain to my brother,” he tacks once Ashe honours Lonato and his brother. Felix’s heart jumps in his chest at the thought alone, and he steps on his foot, eliciting a quiet laugh from the fool.

With final encouragements coming to a close, Dimitri raises his lance with a gleam in his eyes. “Onward, to our final battle!”

They burst through the doors soon after, weapons in hand. The final remains of Edelgard’s dying army face them. Their numbers are larger than Felix anticipated, yet he feels as though it was foolish to not expect such a gathering of people, ready to face them just as he is them. Dimitri seems undeterred, though, and neither does Byleth, which he supposes should be some comfort. But what comfort is there in the unknown?

Dimitri determines that the likelihood lies in Edelgard waiting in the throne room, tucked away behind the Imperial soldiers. With a final cry, he signals for action.

“See you after the fight!” Sylvain yells as they charge. “No cheating, Fe!”

“You should be telling that yourself!” Felix laughs as he sticks his blade into a victim when the words slip past his lips, spraying his front with fresh blood.

The odds seem smaller and smaller the longer they all fight for, with the cry for healing spells and vulneraries and concoctions loud and ringing through the palace halls more often than perhaps ever before in any fight Felix has fought in. The numbers are overwhelming, with a grand mix of opponents - from brawlers, to swordmasters, to mages and worse. He’s never been so glad to have followed Byleth’s past professor advice to take up an interest in reason, with one hand casting magic and the other waving his blade with quick succession. Soon enough, he gets tunnel vision and falls into an almost rhythmic pace - slash, Thoron, slash, Thunder, slash, slash, Thoron - and the kills are harder to count with the more enemies he takes down.

He laughs again as an enemy collapses when bolts zap from his gloved palm, yelling loudly to where he knows Sylvain fights. “Thirty-one! I bet you’ve already started cheating!”

No reply follows, just the sound of battle; armour screeching when scraped with offensive metal, screams and pleads echoing off the walls and spells shouted amidst the maze of the dead. Felix finishes the mage in front of him off with a swift slice to her throat, turning as her body falls limp. “Thirty-tw-” His words get lodged in his throat.

A spear sticks out of Sylvain’s back with the point facing Felix, and he stands, his own lance shoved through the flesh of an Imperial soldier who is already dead.

Felix watches with cold horror as Sylvain pulls the Lance of Ruin out of the soldier, who falls onto his back with a sick slap against the marble floor. He stumbles a little, a sharp gasp audible as he shoulders into a column sprouting from the ground. He drops the lance with a clatter as his whole body weight leans on the column, and his hand falls to where blood is trickling from the wound at his middle.

“Sylvain!” Felix shouts, throat tight as he runs for him, hands soon at his shoulders and gripping him frantically. “Sylvain, hey, hey, look at me. Shit, look at me, Sylvain!”

Sylvain does, and winces. His glove is glistening red. “Fe…”

“No! No, no, no, no, no, fuck, fuck, dammit -” One arm holds Sylvain steady, the other rummaging for a potion in his pouch like a madman. His heart beats against his chest so hard it hurts. He feels sick when he comes out with nothing. “Sylvain, do you have something? A - a concoction, vulnerary, elixir, _anything?!”_

Sylvain swears softly - _too_ softly - and his head lolls back against the cool column. “Back with my horse… Forgot…” His speech is slow, breaths becoming more ragged.

Felix’s sigh could very well be a whimper. He looks around desperately - they can’t be the only ones in this part of the palace, surely, there’s no way in hell - “MERCEDES!” Felix hollers when he sights her across the hall. “MERCEDES, CAST - CAST SOME HEALING ON SYLVAIN! NOW!”

Mercedes’ head whips round to face where the pair of them are hunched as a soldier collapses at her feet, her eyes widening in terror before she raises her hand to do just that.

“MERCIE, WATCH OUT!” Annette shrieks and tries to aim her spells at the enemy storming towards Mercedes with such vigour, Felix fears she will be cut down right before him. Mercedes rips her gaze away from him and Sylvain, ducking just in time to avoid the axe swinging for her head. There’s no chance of getting her help anytime soon, not with the sudden hoard of reinforcements emerging from the staircase near them.

“No, no, no,” Felix’s voice trembles, searching around for someone else. “BYLETH! ASHE, DIMITRI, _SOMEONE!_ DEDUE!”

“Fe, it’s okay.” Sylvain coughs and he slowly eases himself down to the floor. His legs are growing weak and he can hardly hold himself up anymore. Felix falls to his knees with him, “It’s okay… Go help the others...”

“You’re _insane,”_ Felix spits. “Fuck, I knew I should have - should have paid more attention to faith lectures, I-”

“Hey. Don’t. Keep… Keep yourself alive, alright? For me.” Sylvain’s voice is torn and tender. He raises his bloody, gloved hand to Felix’s cheek. He knows his skin is stained now.

“No. _No!_ No, Sylvain, you - you _promised.”_ Felix’s voice cracks, and hot tears meet the blood painted on his cheekbone. “You fucking _promised_ we would die together! Don’t leave me, don’t you fucking _dare_ leave me! MERCEDES!” He moves his head to scream again, as to not deafen Sylvain’s ear. He flinches anyway.

“I - I’m trying, I’ll be there soon!” Mercedes shouts back, panic in her voice.

“Guess you won,” Sylvain sighs, but it sounds more like a hiss from pain.

“What?” Felix snaps his head back, eyes locking with his.

An empty half-laugh tumbles out of Sylvain. “Had thirty-three kills. You’ll have more soon enough. What’s - _agh_ -” He squeezes his eyes shut, spare hand at the wound and the one holding Felix’s cheek remaining in its place. “What’s your reward?”

Felix shakes his head, but this time it’s bare of any fondness. “Shut up. Shut _up,_ I’m not playing your stupid games -”

“‘S not a game, Felix.” His hand slackens a little, Felix feels it, and without thinking he covers it with his own. It shakes. “Remember… the fortune I got…?” There’s something heartbreaking about his smile that’s sharp like a shard of glass. His words shove it into the tissue of his heart.

He hasn’t thought of the words in years, but they come to him easily now. “ _You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms,_ ” he whispers. His heart begins to bleed.

A mission that took longer than expected, and Byleth’s decision to make the Blue Lions stay the night at the nearby village inn. They had all been thrilled to know they would be missing a whole day of classes because of the long journey back to Garreg Mach, and they wouldn’t have even made it in time despite their leave being at dawn. It seemed like the most incredulous thing to happen to them all in a while, with the chance to explore the village and its oddities as well as share rooms in groups. Sylvain had rejoiced that he hadn’t had a sleepover since he, Felix, Dimitri and Ingrid were kids. Felix cared little for it and wished for a hot bath and rest.

He got himself dragged halfway across the village anyway by his friends and classmates, with Byleth forced to join them, whether as supervision or because of Annette and Sylvain’s wailing pleads, he never found out. They shopped and spent their allowances on sweets they had never heard of before, passed around bottles of sweet drinks Felix believed to be sickly tasting, only just about maybe enjoying himself as he got tugged away from a mercenary’s sales, displaying weapons that made his eyes round in awe.

“Where are you taking me hostage now?” He had hissed with impatience as Sylvain led him away to where the rest of them crowded outside a decorated booth, pulling him by his sleeve.

“Mercedes and Ashe found a fortune telling booth! The Professor said it’s the last thing we can check out before we gotta go back to the inn, and there’s no way we would go in without you.” He threw a grin at him over his shoulder, his cheeks flushed a pretty pink from whatever fizz they drank before splitting off for a short while.

Felix spat out a laugh. “Wish you had.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Guys, look who I found!”

Mercedes had beamed, clasping her hands. “Lovely! Let us go in! I’ve already paid for all of us to have our fortune told.”

Before Dimitri could object any further about how _he_ ought to have paid, because _Goddess, I have money I hardly need!_ they ventured inside, Sylvain’s fingers pinching Felix’s sleeve still. They both sat together, with Byleth to his left and Sylvain to his right, sinking down into uncomfortable and too plush, cushioned seats. Felix nearly sneezed because of the far too strong perfume that suffocated the room.

The fortune teller elaborately welcomed and thanked them for joining them in their lonely domain, claiming it was just them and the spirits for most of the day. When Felix had mumbled something about how he wondered how such a thing could dare happen to such a lovely fortune teller, Annette had kicked his shin under the table, leaving him thinking how she even heard him in the first place.

The ritual dragged on for a time Felix wished he could have gotten back, with tea being drained, incense burned and cards shuffled. One by one, the Blue Lions had their fortunes told, and all but Felix, Byleth and Dedue listened in fascination. He was unsure if Dedue was just as unamused as him and that he had simply agreed to make Dimitri happy or if he seemed to find the need to force himself into a neutrality, especially when his fortune apparently read as one with struggle that would be worthwhile, and the promise of love. Dimitri’s hopeful gazes probably weren’t of help, either. He could hardly tell if Byleth even had much thought about the promise of a celestial blessing, but what Felix _did_ know was that he thought the tragic whisper of his life being cut short by loss: complete and utter bullshit. He didn’t care if people lived or died, as long as he was prepared for his own duel with his brother’s corpse when his own end would come and claim him. He said nothing, and only permitted himself a disbelieving look on his face when Mercedes had leaned over the table to pat his hand sympathetically.

Sylvain’s fortune was the last to be told, and even the teller grew quiet as they read the lines on his open palms.

“So?” Sylvain encouraged with a devilish grin. “What is it? Eternal life? Unparalleled love? A big Crest family?”

With the same haunted voice as they adopted with every other fortune, the teller said, clear as a bell, _“You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms.”_

Silence fell, thick as a blanket, at the telling table. Undecipherable looks presented themselves before Sylvain, whose own smile seemed to falter. He then laughed, loud and short. “Aww, that’s romantic!” He had turned to Felix, and now the memory drains his heart of blood and life entirely as Sylvain’s past words echo in his head, squeezing at it. “Will you hold me while I take my last breath, Fe? Cradle me close and beg me to not go?”

Felix regrets after so many years, snarking back, “Who said we’re friends?”

They had all forgotten the incident soon enough, complaining loudly about how _cold_ it was at dawn and how the saddles they rode on hurt to sit on. Naivety was an old friend.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Sylvain manages now, and Felix wants to shake him, shake him and scream at him, shake him and call him every bad word he learnt from his dead brother, shake him and lie about hating him, shake him and cradle him to his chest, weeping and begging for the Goddess to take him just as she’s about to take the only person Felix has ever loved in all his sorry, pathetic life.

Instead, he just whispers Sylvain’s name, like an already broken man about to break even more beyond repair. “You _promised…_ ”

Sylvain nods, and tears are sliding down his face now, dried up blood from outside the palace colouring them red as they fall. “I’m sorry, Felix. I - I really am I prom -” He hacks and Felix feels bile rise up his throat. “I promise. He was sneaking up behind you, I-I couldn’t let - you can’t die -”

His fault. Felix’s damn fault for not paying enough attention to his surroundings. And now Sylvain pays for it.

He feels cut open. “So you are instead? Sylvain -”

Sylvain numbly brings Felix’s forehead to rest against his. “Find… my parents… Tell them my stupid Crest didn’t save me… And…” He hears Sylvain nudge the Lance of Ruin by his foot. “Destroy it… I don’t - don’t care how, just -” He whines and shuts his eyes. When Felix whimpers out his name, he only asks for him to pull the stupid spear out.

Sylvain’s cries only make the tears fall heavier from Felix’s eyes as he does.

“Felix, I need to tell you some - something,” he gasps and Felix’s hand takes his free one by his side, locks their fingers together and squeezes them with his own.

“Don’t.”

“But you need to -”

“Then live and tell me it later.”

His smile is sad. So, so fucking sad. “I can’t.”

Felix is hardly coherent when he replies, “Then I don’t want it.”

“Stubborn,” Sylvain breathes, and it’s the last he takes.

Felix screams.

  
  
  


Among his father’s belongings that Felix’s uncle had handed over to him was the key to his chambers at the Kingdom castle. They had journeyed back to Fhirdiad soil upon Edelgard’s defeat, and Felix has not spoken a single word since Sylvain’s last to him. No one blames him, nor do they chase after him when they arrive back at the royal territory, his heels clicking in the empty halls he walks through to the room he recalls finding his father in as a child if he was not found in the Counselling Room with King Lambert.

The key fits in snugly, and with a void flick of his wrist, Felix unlocks the door before pushing it open. The room is dusty from years of misuse, thick layers of the proof of passed time heavy on every surface. Felix shuts the door behind him with his foot, and it slams throughout the Knights’ Wing as he does. He ignores it and makes a direct stride to Rodrigue’s old desk. He filters through it for a short moment, and when he finds parchment, an ink bottle and a quill, he gets to scrawling words on the page that he hasn’t the energy nor will to say aloud.

_Tell his parents and destroy the Lance of Ruin. It’s what he asked me to do._

_Bury me with him._

_And_ _~~Boar~~ _ _Dimitri, if you see my ghost, chase it away._

_\- F_

His breath shudders as he screws the cap back onto the bottle of ink, and he sets the quill down by the parchment. He rereads it thrice, contemplating adding some sort of apology, but he can’t find a single ounce of truth in such a statement. He’s not sorry for what’s set in stone.

Felix sits on the bed, dust rising and dancing in the air as he does. He stares at the wall blankly as he unsheathes his blade.

_Loss will cut your life short just as it did your childhood._

He stabs the blade through his clothes, and it slices through skin, muscle, tissue until it meets bone.

“Thirty-three,” he rasps, voice hoarse from screaming earlier and from the numb pain in his gut. “Looks like we both lose, Sylvain.”


End file.
